U.S. Pat. No. 7,446,044, titled “Carbon nanotube switches for memory, RF communications and sensing applications, and methods of making the same,” issued to Kaul et al. on Nov. 4, 2008, and assigned to the assignee of the present application, describes switches constructed using carbon nanotubes. The switches described therein are claimed to provide switching times of the order of nanoseconds. However, such switches are not conveniently constructed using systems and methods compatible with standard semiconductor processing technology.
A recent paper entitled “Design Optimization of NEMS Switches for Single-Electron Logic Applications” by Benjamin Pruvost, Hiroshi Mizuta, and Shunri Oda describes designs and simulations of vertical NEMS switches used to control a variable capacitance in a single electron transistor that could operate in times of some tens of nanoseconds (e.g., 30 ns or more).
There is a need for mechanical switches that provide very high speed switching and that are compatible with conventional semiconductor processing technology.